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IFH 686: How to Get Things Done with David Allen · Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast

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You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting
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podcasts, just go to IFAH podcast network dot com. Welcome to the Indie
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Film Hustle Podcast, Episode number six eighty six. False when things Change,
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I'll be happy. True When I am happy things will change. Kyle SE's
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broadcasting from the back alley in Hollywood. It's the Indie Film Hustle Podcast,
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where we show you how to survive and thrive as an indie filmmaker in the
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jungles of the film biz. And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome,
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Welcome to another episode of the Indie Film Hustle Podcast. I am your
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Enjoy today's episode with guest host Jason Buff. Without any do let me
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get to David Allen a quick introduction. He is the author of the amazing
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book Getting Things Done. It's a book that's influenced tons and tons of filmmakers
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out there, in addition to people. You know, he's spoken at Google,
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he's done Ted Talks. I'm really lucky that he's come on the show
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because he influenced me a lot too, you know, as a creative person,
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I'm kind of all over the map and fairly disorganized. And his book
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really kind of lays out a plan so that you can, you know,
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basically get things done how that you can you know, start working on things,
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not having a million things in your head. You know, especially for
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screenwriters or people who are trying to produce a movie, it's hard to know.
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Sometimes you know what to do next. You wake up and it's like
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it's such a large enterprise writing a screenplay or producing a movie or whatever you
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want to do. It's so huge. It's like, what am I going
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to do today? What am I What's the one thing that I'm going to
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do today to start moving forward? And you know, his book lays that
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out and talks about a lot of different things, and we'll get into that.
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So anyway, here's my interview with David Allen. For the people who
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you know are listening to this are mostly writers, producers, people that want
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to make independent films. And I was hoping that you could take a moment
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just to talk about the GTD system, that getting things done system, and
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what the ideas behind it, the concepts behind it. Sure, one of
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the basic concepts is that your heads for having ideas, but not for holding
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them. People actually don't need time, the need space. I mean,
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how much time does it take to have a creative idea? You know,
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zero? But you need room. So what the GTD system is? It
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really was over the years sort of unfolded as to what are the techniques that
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actually you're that allow you to actually clear your head, get stuff off your
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mind without necessarily having to finish them and still be committed to them. So
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how do you manage all those agreements with yourself in some external way as opposed
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to having your head as an office. Your head's a crappy office, by
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the way, It's a crappy studio, it really is. I mean it'll
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if you have stuff in your head, there's a part of you that thinks
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you should be doing all of it all the time. So your head is
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consistently trying to multitask. What you can't do that is you can't focus,
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you know, with focused attention to more than one thing at a time.
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But there's a part of your head that's trying to do that. If your
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head's the only place it's holding stuff. So just like people keep calendars called
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you know, I say, well, why do you keep a calendar,
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well, because my head can't do that. Well, why do you think
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your head can do everything else? And not that it's like WHOA doesn't make
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much sense. You know, if you don't want to track stuff out of
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your head, throw away your calendar. Don't be intellectually dishonest. So it's
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really about how do I externalize and objectify all of my work, and work
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in the broadest sense called anything you want to get done that ain't done yet.
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That's get cat food as well as you know, have been to do
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business plan, as well as you know, produce the next movie. So
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all of those things just need to be externalized. That that allows you to
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see the difference and actually, you know, cognitively catch the difference between and
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of weight between dog food or cat food, and produce movie in your head.
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Believe it or not, they take up about the same aimlet of space,
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and either one will wake up at three o'clock in the morning when you
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actually can't do anything about it. Your head is actually kind of a dumb
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terminal, and it really it. You'll be driven by latest and modest by
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things in there, right, So it's really about all that's behind it.
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So but there are specific techniques you can't just you can't just clear your head
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by meditating or drinking. You know, you know, I both, I
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know, so I know you know. You can leave your head or numb
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it out, but it won't clear it, right. So can you talk
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about some of the techniques that you recommend. Sure, I'll give you the
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twenty second version. Whoever's listening to this, Hang on, ready, capture
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any potentially meaningful thing on your mind in some trusted place that you then clarify
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exactly what that thing means sooner than later, in terms of whether it's actionable,
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and if so, what you're going to do about it, and the
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next action and the outcome you're committed to. Then step back and review those
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things in appropriate categories, so that some part of you is constantly maintaining an
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inventory of your gestalt, of all of your different commitments and all the different
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horizons. And trust your heart or your gutter, see your pants, or
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your spirit or whatever you trust to make a good intuitive judgment call moment to
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moment about what you do. That's it. Okay, that'll take you two
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years to build that as a happen. Yeah, that was a very quick
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explanation. Even if you understand it, it's easy to understand. It takes
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two minutes to understand the model. It's about two days if you actually were
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going to implement it like literally it literally empty everything out of your head and
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go through and make next action decisions about them and create an organizational structure you
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know that holds all that and then about two years to make that habitual so
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that you'd feel uncomfortable if you weren't doing it right. So you talk a
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lot about taking notes. I mean, what in a typical day do you
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just like, how do you organize all those things that are going on in
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your life? Or how should people try to do that to get it out
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of their head? Yeah, it's they're capturing stuff is very different than organizing.
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So I've got you know, I've got notepad right on my desk right
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now. You know, it has a phone number on it. I tried
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to call and nobody answered or it was busy, but I got to call
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him again because I'm gonna make an appointment about my eyes. So it's just
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on that notepad. If I if I don't finish that, call that notepad
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by the way, that we'll go we'll get torn off that page and thrown
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into my in basket, in which case, then later on, you know,
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sooner than later, I will drive all that to empty by deciding,
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Okay, where does that go? Where do I park a reminder about that
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that I that I need to do? So capturing happens all day long,
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you know, just at any time one in time. You know, I
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carry a little notepad around in my pocket, right, and you know it's
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a great little app called brain Toss that I can just pop up my iPhone
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and talk into it and it'll show up right into my email as a as
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a as a sound file as well as you know, text about it,
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right, you know, any that any of those things work. But you
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know, I want to have the freedom to have a thought but not have
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to decide exactly what to do about it. Yet that actually allows and frees
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up my creative thinking process. I throw away probably half for three quarters of
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my notes, you know, but when I have I'm I'm not sure what
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they mean yet, but they might mean something significant, and so I don't
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want to lose any of those. But then I need to loop back around
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from another part of my brain and then assess that stuff and get executive about
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it. Call okay, David, what are you gonna do about that?
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If anything? What does that mean at a restaurant you really want to track?
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Or is that a phone number that you need to put in your telephone
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and address? Is that something you still need to do about that? And
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those are the clarifying questions you need to ask yourself to decide what this stuff
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really means. So step one is to capture, Step two is to clarify.
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Step three is to organize the results of that thinking in that decision making.
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Okay, that's how that's how you get your kitchen under control. By
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the way, what is you walk in it looks like, you know,
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tornado hit it. You go, oh my god, I got guess coming
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over. The first thing you do is you recognize what's not on cruise control.
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You capture, you identify stuff that's that you probably need to decide and
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do something about. Number two is you need to clarify. Is that still
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good food goes in the fridge? Is that trash that goes away? Is
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that is that dirty dish or is that cleanland? And then you organize those
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You put spices where spices go, you put dirty dishes where dirty dishes go.
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You put trash where trash goes. We'll be right back after a word
9:58
from our sponsor and now back to the show. Big duh. But that's
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what you need to do with every email, with every thought, with every
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creative thing that pops into your head, if you want to get it under
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control and not have it run you Right. Yeah, that's a huge thing,
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especially when it comes to you know, screenwriting, and most of the
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writers, I know that they and I'm also a writer, but you you
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know, we're constantly with notebooks because you never you have these ideas and if
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they're gone, they you know, sometimes you're just like, you know,
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what, what was? I had this amazing idea and now it's gone,
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you know, And so we we've gotten in the habit of taking notes.
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And what you know, I get a lot out of the um GTD system
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is that you should be constantly taking notes, but about every aspect of your
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life, so that you're not constantly in the state of being overwhelmed by thinking,
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I've got a million things to do, I don't know what to I
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don't know what the next step is going to be, right, And you
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obviously don't need to write down the fifty thousand thoughts you have a day.
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You just need to write down the ones that aren't complete. When you have
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them, there's still something I might need to do about that, as opposed
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to just grazing in your mind. Okay, now, what is your feeling
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towards things like multitasking or you know, people who can kind of sit there
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and do like five things at the same time, they can't. They can
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rapidly switch, but whether they're actually increasing their performance by doing that is in
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question. There's a couple of new books out that have come out in the
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last year of a lot of cognitive science research that has basically proven that's you
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know, that's bs if you think you're that's going to actually increase your capability
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to be able to do that. Now, that said, if you can
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rapidly switch your focus with a placeholder, in other words, if you've sort
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of interrupted me, Jason, you came in and you suddenly walked down and
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say, hey, David, by the way, could you do explain z
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let's talk for three minutes or whatever. And I was in the middle of
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doing something. As long as I have a placeholder for that thing I was
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doing so I don't have to keep re remembering that I need to do that.
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In other words, I'll throw the notes or my work literally right into
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my own physical in basket, and I'll turn around and engage with you.
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Why because I got a placeholder that as soon as I stop engaging with you,
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I can pick that right up. But that leaves my brain clear to
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enough focus on you and whatever's going on there, as opposed to trying to
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keep hanging onto it. So that's why having an external brain and having the
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capability to be able to capture and placehold stuff that's not finished in some trusted
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place will allow you to switch rapidly. If you don't do that, then
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you truly and they've proven this that your cognitive function is suboptimal. You're trying
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to you're switching. Costs are huge. You try to focus over there,
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but there's a part of you that's still hanging your focus back to where it
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was, that doesn't want to forget it. But then you're so you're not
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fully present really with any of that. And people can get pretty good at
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what it looks like. But this is a you know, there's new there's
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a lot of data out there now that that proves that's not true. They've
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even they've even found that that even using hands free phones in your car is
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as dangerous statistically as texting, simply because of the switching costs in your mind.
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So you'll think, you'll you'll think you're driving in the you know,
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in the right lane, and the brain kind of will kid you to think
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that's true. And actually that's visually what you see, but your mind went
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off somewhere else on that phone call that you were talking about, and it's
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actually it's actually not true. Surprised me to read that data. But that's
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yeah, that's all that's you know, what happens. Your brain is really
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wasn't designed to hold onto more than about four meaningful things at once. It
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does that very well, by the way. That's how you survived on the
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savanna. That's how you could eat and not be eaten. But that brain,
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you know, however, many millions of years had developed to be able
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to do that very well. So your brain can recognize brilliantly, even better,
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way better than any computer. Yet you walk into a room, you
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recognize patterns. You see, that's a light, that's a chair, that's
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a person, that's a thing, that's a printer, and the computer still
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can't even do that. Yet you're doing that all the time. By the
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way, your brain is brilliant at that, using long term memory, pattern
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recognition, making sense out of your world. But it's totally present when it
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does that. What your brain can't do is remember where you left your keys.
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But you know, that was one of the really things I loved your
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Ted talk when you were talking about how the brain has almost stay you know,
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and correct me if this wasn't what you were saying, but the brain's
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tendency to be a natural planner to the point of or that we've kind of
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gotten away from the way that the mind works and we've started kind of changing
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the way that we accomplish goals in a somewhat unnatural way. Yeah. Yeah,
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that's fascinating. It was fascinating to realize that that, you know,
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what we automatically do and how we naturally plan is not how most people actually
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plan the more complex things. It's how you get out of beds, how
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you get dressed, it's how you know, cooked dinner. But when people
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then say, okay, now I need to I need to you know,
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be the production manager for a movie how do I plan, you know,
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how do I plan budget and all this other stuff and you know anything anymore,
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or even just your wedding or how about just a big party you want
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to give or your next vacation. And most people, you know either don't
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then plan them at all or they're sort of driven by whatever the latest and
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loudest thing is, as opposed to learning from ourselves in terms of how the
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brain really naturally doesn't. It was fascinating to me just to uncover that.
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Yeah. Right, So if somebody's you know, sitting there today, you
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know, working towards a project. Let's say, for example, their their
15:56
ideas they want to produce a film, um, but you know, when
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it comes to screenwriting, and when it comes to producing, um, you
16:04
know something artistic or you know, films are basically like a little business anyway,
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you know. I mean a lot of people don't think of it like
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that. But so a person, we kind of get into this abyss where
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you don't know what to do next, and you're starting out and you're kind
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of like, Okay, I know this is the end goal, and I
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know kind of where I'm at right now. How do I get you know,
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from point A to point B to point Z, you know, and
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not just like be completely overwhelmed all the time with I have ten million things
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I have to do. Yeah, well with all of that externalizing it getting
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out of your head, you know, get yourself pen and paper, just
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pull you pull up some computer files, pull up a word doc, and
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just dump it out, all the ideas, every single thing you might need
16:47
to think about or whatever about the film or about what your project. I
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mean, that's that is part of the natural planning model is once you have
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a vision and it's not that met by current reality, it creates this dissonance
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that says, what God, I gotta trying to get I try to go
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to close the gap between the vision I have in my head and where I
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am right now. So there's you know, so you do a part A
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of that, which is, okay, any potentially relevant idea I need to
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capture, get out of my head. And that's what most people refer to
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as brainstorming. But that's and and that's you know, that's the first thing
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is don't you know, don't let your brain get constipated by you know,
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oh I got a ten minute things to do. I don't know where to
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start, well, write down where you might start, all the places you
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might start, you know, as line as poets said, the best way
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to have a good idea to have a lot of ideas. So get them
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all out now, you don't leave them all out just in terms of then
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willy nilly, you get them all out, and then there's a part of
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you that will then naturally start to recognize patterns and start to recognize components and
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sequences and priorities. Oh that's more important than that. Oh yeah, I
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need to handle that, you know. The first thing I really need to
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do is yeah, and that's just good sort of natural thinking. But you
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have to, you know, sort of go with the flow in terms of
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how your mind really thinks and and capture as opposed to it's got to be
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right before I write it down. That's death. And that's how we were
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taught. That's what planning wasn't all about. If you if you know,
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if you're old as I am, you we were taught outlining in school,
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you know, to write reports, and that's you know that you sit down
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and start by trying to create an outline. Well, good luck, you
18:18
know that force that forces your mind to try to figure out what's Roman umber
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one. And you know, there's quite a bit of thinking you have to
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do before you even can trust what you think Roman umeraer one's going to be.
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And so giving yourself permission to have the freedom to be to use the
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creative aspect of who you are and how your brain works. I think that's
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you know, it's our educational system that that sort of constipated all that.
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But there there is a way you can really make all that work, you
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know, I mean, you know, come of the you know, some
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of my biggest champions were the Simpson writers. Yeah, and really Joss Whedon
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and I can talk about them because they mentioned it publicly. I mean,
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Jos in a Fast Company the article said, look, you know when when
19:00
he did the last you know, when he shot much ado about nothing in
19:03
his backyard, he said, wow, you know, if it wasn't for
19:07
David Allen's Next Action concept, I never could have done that in the three
19:08
days we did it, you know. So you know, and you know
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Howard Sterns, a huge fan of mine, really changed changed his life.
19:18
He would tell you that he's spoken about it on you know, on the
19:21
air for months. Right once he once you know, he sort of got
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coached with our with our model, it's really freed up because of what it
19:27
does is it frees up space for these guys. That's that's what the creative
19:32
people want. It actually frees up space for anybody. But you know,
19:36
and what you do with that space is up to you. If you're a
19:38
rock musician, you'll use space to get more music ideas and to make sure
19:41
you finished the song instead of just start him. You know, if you
19:45
if you're a fifty five year old executive that's about to merge with another company,
19:49
you'll use space to be more strategic in your negotiations and you're thinking about
19:55
you know, priorities. Will be right back after a word from our sponsor.
20:04
And now back to the show. And if you're a writer or a
20:10
screenwriter, or you know, if you're an indie producer, what would you
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do with more space? You know, there's a whole lot of things you
20:18
could do with more space, I would imagine, But the space is what
20:22
you need. And you know all GPD the getting things done modeled it,
20:25
but say, okay, here's how you get space, and you don't have
20:27
to go very far to know where to start. Just ask yourself. What's
20:30
on your mind? You know, Jason, if I ask you, if
20:36
you if you weren't talking to me right now, what where would your mind
20:38
go? What's the most on your mind? Right Yeah? Whatever you answer
20:45
is very probably going to be something that's hung up and you're the bottleneck.
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The reason it's on your mind is because there's some decision about it you haven't
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made or you haven't parked the results of that thinking in some in someplace you
20:55
trust, right, Yeah, I mean, I'm your The The book is
21:00
pretty much for people like me. I think that you know, I have
21:03
too many things going on in my head, and you know, it's it's
21:07
really helpful just to say, Okay, you know I went through when you're
21:11
doing the Ted talk, you had the thing where you take notes and you
21:14
get all the things out of your head that you're that are kind of occupying
21:18
your time and then taking that and figuring out, you know what exactly are
21:23
you gonna you know, what are the next actions you're going to take?
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And that the really important thing for me was the concept of what can you
21:32
actually do right now? And what you're just sitting there worrying about unless you
21:36
can actually take action on it right now. There's no point in worrying about
21:40
it. You know, put it in, put it there and know that
21:41
you have to do it. But don't sit there and like kind of go
21:45
you know, churn the wheels over and over thinking about that, and focus
21:48
on things you can do. Sure, there are no problems, there are
21:51
only projects. So you'll only cause something a problem if you think something ought
21:57
to be fixed about it. You're just willing to figure out or take a
22:02
risk to try to do that. Right right, I mean, so taking
22:08
anything that's an issue or problem, you need to decide, Look to your
22:11
point, can you do something about this or not? Ninety percent of the
22:15
time you probably can and just haven't figured that out or you haven't sat down
22:18
and forced yourself to make that decision. Wait a minute, what more information
22:22
do I need? Wait a minute? Who do I need to talk to
22:23
you about this? What do I need to do to move the needle?
22:26
If I if I was going to pay you a million bucks just to start
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move making progress on that problem, that issue, that opportunity, where would
22:34
you go right now physically and what would you do and that kind of rigor
22:40
you know, to your point of that the next action thinking is so powerful,
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it's so mundane and yet so you know, it's it's the silver bullet
22:48
usually. Now, one of the things that I really enjoyed about the book
22:52
is also the concept of tricks. And you know, some people now would
22:56
just would refer to that as hacks for you know, organizing. Can you
23:00
talk about a few of your favorite hacks or tricks for um, you know,
23:06
for implementing the GTD system in your life. One of the best is
23:10
the two minute rule. Anything you can finish once you decide the next action,
23:14
if you can actually take that action within two minutes, if you're ever
23:17
going to do that action and all do it right, then it'll take you
23:19
longer to actually stack a track it and look at it again than it would
23:22
be to finish it when it's in your face. If you just did that
23:26
around your house or your apartment or your flat or wherever you live. If
23:30
you just started to implement the two minute rule, flashlight that needs a battery,
23:33
it would only take you two minutes to go get that battery and stick
23:36
it in there. You'd be amazed how much cleaner your house is going to
23:38
be. Effective it would be if that's all you've got out of what I
23:42
did is the two minute rule. You know that that's one of the most
23:45
popular hacks you know of that emerged out of all of this what go ahead?
23:55
Sorry, yeah, you know, it's not really a hack, it's
23:57
just a it's an absolutely necessary principle, which is just right, stuff down,
24:02
have an inbasket, have a physical intro, throw stuff in there,
24:06
and then get it empty every twenty four to forty eight hours. I mean
24:10
that there's there's no bigger better habit. People say, David, what rituals
24:14
and habits have I installed? That's the main one. You know. There's
24:18
all kinds of stuff I hate to have to think about and have to decide
24:22
about. But because I'm so now addicted to getting my inbasket empty, it
24:26
forces me to make those decisions so I can empty. It's one of the
24:30
best. That's one of the best tricks in the world in terms of being
24:32
productive, because people just avoid next action decisions about all kinds of things,
24:37
so they just spread stuff around in their life. And then and then it
24:40
starts to create this ambient stress because it's yelling at them all the time.
24:44
Let there's just numb out to it. Now. Can you just go a
24:51
little bit more in depth with the next action concept just for just second?
24:55
Yeah, well, you know, write everything down this on your mind,
24:57
right, then take each one of those things one at a time to go,
25:00
okay, if this is something to move on at all. It may
25:03
have been just a hair brained idea or something else. But is there something
25:07
to do about this? What specifically physically visible action would would I need to
25:12
take to start moving toward closure on whatever this thing is? If it's if
25:18
you wrote down cat food, what's your next action? I need to buy
25:22
cat food or great? Do you know where to buy it? Yeah?
25:25
I do? Uh? Where do you keep a list of stuff to buy
25:30
when you go there? Yeah? Right up on the fridge? Great,
25:33
go stick it there, cat food on the post, It on the refrigerator.
25:37
Now you're in. Then it's off your mind. Some parties says,
25:40
okay, I did that, But you have to decide what's the next step
25:42
on that? If you get okay, new indie movie idea? Fabulous?
25:47
What's the next action? Oh god? You well, I'm even not sure
25:53
how to start. How would you figure it out? You know? I
25:57
want to talk to somebody who actually produced it, indise, I've never done
26:00
one before, and I should talk to the great how would you how would
26:03
you you know, plumb their brain? Uh? Maybe I should have lunch
26:07
for them. Great? What's your next action? Set up a lunch?
26:10
How would you do that? I have an email to send their phone call
26:12
to make let me let me shoot him an email? Great? How long
26:15
would that take? Thirty seconds? Go? Suddenly you know, suddenly you're
26:22
off and running, but you still haven't the foggiest idea how to do an
26:25
idi. You just made a decision that got you in the driver's seat of
26:27
this situation as opposed to feeling the victim of now over committing and having to
26:33
beat you up. Yeah, and it's so simple, but it actually,
26:37
I mean, it does completely change everything. You know. How you start
26:40
thinking like that, I call it the magic of the mundane. Do you
26:45
do you actually have a Do you have to have a physical in I mean
26:48
you talk about your inbasket and you know everything that I do if I have
26:52
papers, it just becomes out of control here, you know, I do
26:56
everything virtual, but you think it's it's better to have le there. You
27:00
don't you still have a physical driver's license? You still you still get some
27:04
bills in the mail. You certainly get certain some physical mail. You get
27:07
fed Ex's don't. No, Well, I'm an expat like you, I
27:12
live in Uh, I live in Mexico, so you know, we don't
27:15
get mail where I live. But I get your point. Yeah, but
27:19
you know, believe it or not, there's a lot of stuff that I
27:22
need to print out from my computer and throw it into my inbasket because there's
27:26
stuff that I need to do or think about that, and I want to
27:30
I want to have a written, you know, thing to that helps me
27:32
think about it, you know. Uh. Or I'm halfway through something and
27:37
I need to remind myself that that's not finished yet and I need to come
27:41
back to it. I'll print it out and throw it in my inbasket,
27:44
which then is a trigger to then oh yeah, let me pick that up
27:47
and and and keep going with that. Uh. It's certainly a lot less
27:52
paper now than there was, you know, twenty thirty years ago, for
27:55
sure, right, But even even so, uh, you know, where
27:59
do you throw You get flashlights that get dead batteries, you know, I
28:03
throw those in my inn basket if I don't have the batteries in anything.
28:08
And if you take any kind of notes when you're on the run, what
28:11
do you do with If you're doing any kind of creative writing by hand?
28:15
You know, what do you do with those notes? You know? And
28:18
and if you're taking notes on a phone call? Right you ever do that?
28:23
Yeah? Yeah? What do you do with those notes? Uh?
28:26
Well? I just usually I just use evernes, so I'm just I type
28:30
faster than I write. But I've also got a you know, a notebook.
28:33
Whenever I go to a store, I just buy like five or six
28:37
notebooks and just have just have it there, you know, because you'll you'll
28:41
be able to jot stuff down. Well, you know, if I were
28:42
to sit down next to you desk side, you know, uh, Jason,
28:47
and I'd say, I'd say, do you still have many to those
28:48
notebooks? Probably not? Well, that's fine. It means you've processed them.
28:53
That'd be my point if you still had them lying around, because there
28:56
were still stuff in there that you hadn't decided what it meant, and it
29:00
was still potentially pulling on you to make a decision about it. You know,
29:03
that's that's unhealthy. You know. Spial notebooks are dangerous, you know,
29:08
because that I use a spile notebook, but I use one that's PERF
29:12
so you can so I tear it off so it stays empty. Yeah,
29:17
you know, but but the stuff I tear off goes into my inbasket if
29:19
it's if it's if I can't finish it at that moment, so I still
29:25
need a physical inbasket. If you can get by without one, pay There's
29:27
no there's no right or wrong about any of this. It says, Okay,
29:30
got anything in your head? You know, and if you do,
29:36
there's some because of some something you have not captured somewhere. Now when you
29:41
say you've got it in your head, I mean like subconscious thought. I
29:45
was wondering how you feel about like your subconscious thought. We'll be right back
29:52
after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show. How
30:00
is that affecting you? I mean, you are the things that are in
30:03
your head, Like you know, if you've got like twenty things that you're
30:07
kind of like organizing trying to keep track of, are you conscious that you're
30:11
doing that or is that something that you're just kind of doing and it's affecting
30:17
you know, just your mental you know, alertness or being able to be
30:21
present. I'm not sure exactly. Obviously, if it's unconscious, you're not
30:26
conscious of it. I'm not aware, right, so, but essentially what
30:33
I do, because I've externalized all of these commitments, then it frees me
30:37
up to just trust my intuitive judgments, and that intuitive judgment is being matured.
30:41
And constantly I'm thinking all the time, I'm constantly reassessing what should I
30:47
do? Where's the thing? What do I feel? You know, like
30:49
I need to put my energy and focus right now? You know that my
30:52
system doesn't get rid of that. It frees you up to do that frees
30:56
you up to be making good intuitive choices instead of just being driven by the
31:00
latest and loudest and then loops and and hoping. You know, so you
31:03
want to move from hope to trust basically in terms of just your judgment about
31:06
what you're doing. But I'm you know, I'm constantly thinking what should I
31:10
do? Now? Where's where's the you know, where's the optimal place for
31:12
me? Should I take a napu I have a beer? Should I should
31:15
I go hang out with my dog? Do I need to take a walk?
31:18
You know? Should I be you know, cranking on this you know
31:22
slide deck that I need to upgrade right now. You know, so,
31:26
I don't know if it's your unconscious I think that I think you don't have
31:30
to go very far just to start to pay attention to what has your attention,
31:33
you know, and what do you then need to do to take that
31:37
pressure off your head? You know, what's the next thing that that should
31:40
be telling you what to do? Whether that's coming where that comes from,
31:44
you know, the oracle or God or or your your liver or I don't
31:48
know whatever. The source of your intuitive knowing is right, you know who
31:52
knows? So this is not about, you know, sort of structuring your
31:56
life in some ways. A matter of fact, a lot of people are
31:59
uncomfortable with how unstructured getting things done is because they want to feel more confidence
32:05
that they that they really nailed it all down and and can and and and
32:08
can tack it all down and nothing's going to move, you know, and
32:10
come out from under them. Good luck. Well, that that was what
32:15
I was going to ask you about. You know that that you talk about
32:17
the false sense of control that you get from you know, having everything in
32:22
your head, and there is that aspect of control that I mean I Oh,
32:27
yeah, that's encountered that resistance that people are just like, oh,
32:30
I don't want to you know, I don't want to stop having all this
32:32
and I don't want to put it on a piece of paper because that might
32:35
mean that something might happen to it, or it might you know, yeah,
32:38
you'll might happen. You'll make you feel more out of control about how
32:42
out of control you really are. But yeah, people get mad at me
32:50
for their list. I go, excuse me, it ain't my list,
32:52
dude, and few words. You know, your choice is where do you
32:54
want to track that stuff? And I just and I'm not in convincing anybody,
33:00
I'm just look, I'm just sharing information with you. Right and proved
33:04
me wrong. Implement these processes, and I absolutely guarantee you, without fail,
33:09
you'll feel more in control and more focused so that you can deal with
33:14
and have more mental and cognitive space to do the more meaningful things. How
33:19
did how did you? How did you come upon this? I mean when
33:22
you were in your life, were you also kind of just like one of
33:24
the people that was overwhelmed with stuff and had to I mean, how did
33:29
you discover this system? I've just been a you know, I'm a freedom
33:32
guy and I love it and I love clear space, right. You know,
33:37
I've always been attracted to the zen aesthetic, you know, sort of
33:40
the negative space. You know, I was I read all of Suzuki and
33:44
Watts by the time I finished high school, so I've I've always loved that,
33:47
that kind of minimalist aesthetic. But then, you know, when I
33:52
got into sort of the personal growth game, and you know, how do
33:54
you grow yourselves and how do you find enlightenment and all that good stuff.
33:59
You know, this is California in the sixties and seventies, and discovered that
34:04
actually there are things you can actually learn to do that actually give you more
34:07
of a sense of personal freedom and more of a sense of space. And
34:09
a whole lot of that had to do with your agreements. You know.
34:13
That was a big aha and a personal growth little bit, which was,
34:16
you know, how do you manage your agreements? And what's the price you
34:19
pay if you break an agreement? What do you mean by agreement? Well,
34:23
if you stick yeah, said, compromises you make, Yeah, No,
34:28
the agreements you make. Hey, David, let's meet at you know,
34:30
let's do this podcast on you know, this date at this time.
34:36
That's an agreement. And I say, yeah, I just made an agreement.
34:38
So an agreement just says any commitment, you've got to do something whether
34:42
and all agreements are with yourself. Many of them involve other people, but
34:45
they're all with yourself. You've agreed with yourself, you're going to do that.
34:49
You tell yourself, I need captured. It's made an agreement, you
34:52
know, yoh, yeah, I just agreed with myself. Yes, I'm
34:54
going to get captured somehow in some way. So understanding that when you keep
35:00
an agreement feels fabulous improves your self confidence. If you break an agreement,
35:04
it will undermine your self confidence automatically. It's an automatic price you pay.
35:07
You disent a great trust if you didn't show up. You know, if
35:13
you know there are people I love dearly but I don't trust further, then
35:15
I can throw them to show up when they're going to tell me they're going
35:19
to show up, just based upon that. There's nothing wrong. I don't
35:22
judge that. I just that's just data. But I don't trust them.
35:24
I don't trust them to keep too. You know, they tell me something,
35:29
I doubt that they're going to do it. And shouldn't organize my life
35:31
accordingly. But they're all of these agreements with yourself. What happens then if
35:37
a broken agreement automatically creates stress. So all those things you've told yourself to
35:43
do, and most people have between thirty and one hundred projects in between one
35:45
hundred and fifty and two hundred, next actions if they actually sat down and
35:49
truly inventoried their commitments personally and professionally in all the things they think they should
35:53
do and told themselves they need to do. So. If you want to
35:59
get rid of stress of broken agreements, either don't make the agreement, you
36:02
know, throw the list away, let's say you know, I'll live spontaneously,
36:07
you know, good luck. Or complete the agreement, go finish it
36:10
all. Of course, if you wouldn't finished everything on your list to three
36:15
days, you'd have a bigger list because you get so excited having done all
36:16
that, you'll take on bigger, more incomplete stuff. But the real key
36:22
is how do I can I renegotiate those agreements? See if you said,
36:25
hey, David, let's do this podcast here, and then I came back
36:28
and said, you know, I agreed to that before, but something came
36:30
up really really critical, and I have to handle can we do it another
36:34
time? And you go, yeah, then I renegotiated the agreement. I
36:37
don't have a broken agreement. But you can't renegotiate agreements with yourself. You
36:40
can't remember you made That's again, why keeping track of all of this stuff
36:45
so that you can look at it. No, I'm just going to do
36:49
this podcast with Jason right now. That's the best thing to be doing.
36:52
But the only reason I can be present talking to you right now is because
36:54
not long ago, I looked at everything else that I might would, good,
36:59
should ought to do and said you're in. But I couldn't. I
37:01
can't do that. In my head. I can remember about four things and
37:06
that's about it. Everything else just becomes this huge jumble and jungle. But
37:10
once I've got them out and have all these decisions made about the actions and
37:14
just all I have to do is glance at those action lists, look at
37:15
my calendar, doesn't take it very long, and just feel comfortable that this
37:21
is it. Nothing. I'm not missing anything. Now. I may have
37:23
made a mistake, you know, maybe talking to use the wrong thing to
37:27
do. I'll find out live and learn. But at least I'm confident that
37:31
this is the next mistake I want to make. That makes me yeah,
37:37
definitely. Now you mentioned Howard Stern, and I know Howard Stern's really big
37:42
into transcendental meditation and a lot of this seems to be influenced by Eastern Thought.
37:50
Well that's something Eastern Thought just came up with the same thoughts. I
37:52
did they all read your book, you know, but I mean just the
38:02
concept of you know, meditating and emptying your mind in that way and being
38:07
present. And you even mentioned in your book the mind like water um concept.
38:13
Yeah, well, you know that was I had, you know,
38:15
several years in the martial arts. You know, I got a black belt
38:17
many years ago in in karate, and there's there's quite a bit of training
38:22
about how do you clear your head in the martial arts. You know,
38:24
the Bruce Lee was sort of made famous the whole idea of be like water
38:30
Grasshopper from his guru, because you know, the idea is don't over underreact,
38:37
to be totally open to the to the to the present moment. You
38:39
know, be soft and hard as needed, be don't over underreact. And
38:44
that's that's the idea, is that you don't want to take one meeting into
38:46
the next. You don't want to take home to work. You want to
38:49
be able to be present. Really, the whole idea of GPD is about
38:53
being present. That's your optimal productive state. Whether that's the best way to
38:57
hit a golf ball or took your kids into bed at night or make spaghetti.
39:01
You know, you just want to be there when you're doing it,
39:04
as opposed to having your cognitive functions split. So that's in a way,
39:09
this is just a mechanical process. It's not something to believe. It's not
39:13
something that It's not some cult. The look the brain sciences have now validated
39:21
all of this. You know, I took me thirty five years and learning
39:24
it on the street and watching spending thousands of hours with some of the best
39:30
and brightest and sharpest people on the planet and busiest and watching what happened when
39:34
they started to implement this and how much it changed their life and their work
39:37
without exception. So that's why I wrote the book. I said, I
39:40
guess I've better write Nanuel. Now, Now, what were the Are there
39:45
any books you can aside from your own book? Are there any the books
39:49
that were out there that influenced you and you could recommend as well, or
39:53
any resources out there that people could look. Look, there were there were
39:57
a lot of them over the years. I you know, we'll be right
40:00
back after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show.
40:08
One great book, by the way, for especially for creative types, would
40:13
be Stephen Pressfield's book The War of Art. Oh yeah, yeah, that's
40:20
a great one, fabulous book. And that's one and the two I mentioned,
40:24
by the way, if anybody's interested in the cognitive science stuff, I
40:28
mean, it really is quite fascinating. And two have shown up in the
40:31
last few months. One's called The Organized Mine by Dan Leviton l E v
40:37
I T I N. He's head of cognitive science research at McGill University in
40:45
Quebec or where where we're in Canada. And a Belgian named Theo compernalem p
40:55
e R O L L E has just written a book called brain Chains to
41:01
words like chains around your brain, brain chains, and you know he's he
41:08
was a child psychiatrist and then an MD, and then I got into cognitive
41:13
science and now he's been he's doing quite a bit of executive coaching in terms
41:16
of stress management simply because he became fascinated with this whole idea of the brain
41:24
as a tool. And he's he's accumulated aggregated six hundred different studies from the
41:30
cognitive science field and world in the last decade or so, and you know,
41:37
and kind of reads the Riot Act to everybody about multitasking and what the
41:40
digital world and social media and so forth, or are the addiction that that's
41:45
making so easy for people to get invested in and engaged in, that's then
41:51
stopping a lot of other, you know, real cool stuff, like real
41:54
conversations and real relationships. And he's got he's not against technology, he's just
42:00
saying be careful because this is highly addictive and that they've now proven it truly
42:04
is an addiction that if you if you're if your social media, even just
42:07
having your smartphone in your pocket wondering who's texting you creates a dopamine rush.
42:15
So you literally are getting the same kinds of things that you do within opium
42:20
or harrowing. Yeah, well, it seems like, you know, the
42:23
older I get, the more I realize that my life is determined by the
42:28
little things that give me a little dopamine rush. You know, like the
42:32
career that you choose and the people that you are around, and all the
42:37
little thing, you know, even the color of paint that you choose in
42:39
your house or whatever. It's like everything is determined by that little rush you
42:45
get from it. There's nothing wrong with that. I mean that exercise does
42:47
that. So you can't fault exercise. Which just which which are the healthier
42:53
dopamine rushes? You know, what do you want to get addicted to?
42:57
You want to get addicted to working out, You want to get addicted to
43:00
you know, you know infantamanes, right. I also like the idea of
43:07
you know, you were talking about how you want to write stuff down because
43:12
your future self is not going to be in the same state of mind that
43:15
you're in, and always, you know, you always need to be somewhat
43:21
aware of, you know, how your brain changes from maybe one time of
43:25
day to another time of day, or how you're in a certain kind of
43:29
state of mind where you're being very creative and coming up with ideas and appreciate
43:32
the fact that maybe later on in the day or maybe whenever, that's going
43:37
to kind of disappear and you're leaving kind of like future notes you're like,
43:40
note to future self, you know, because it's funny. I had a
43:43
friend who would go out and drink a lot and he would always leave himself
43:46
voice messages and he would wake up the next day and be like, okay,
43:50
what you know, what's going on? And he'd be like, dear
43:52
future mic, you know, this is what's happening today, Welcome on your
44:00
you know. I think it's the really intelligent people that realize they're only inspired
44:05
and intelligent and and and you're only inspired and brilliant, you know, at
44:09
very random moments in your life. And you know, so what you want
44:14
to do is if you're lazy and smart, what you want to do is
44:16
capture those potentially useful, inspirational, intelligent things so that when you're kind of
44:22
thick and dumb, you do smart things, right, So you know that.
44:25
Yeah, it's the it's the kind of thick and dumb people that think
44:29
they're smart all the time. Yeah, which think is the strange thing is
44:34
is that when you are inspired and have an inspired thought, that that place
44:38
that that that we seem to operate from there has no sense of space and
44:42
time. You're in your zone, so it doesn't it's not kind of that
44:45
consciousness is not so aware of history or future. It thinks it thinks you'll
44:52
be inspired and smart all the time. So it's it is was intelligent of
44:58
your friend to realize, Hey, when I'm in that the future, me
45:02
may not be so inspired, So I better grab that and throw it at
45:07
them. Yeah, I'm always surprised if I go back and look at my
45:09
notes. Sometimes I came up with, like, you know, I write
45:13
every day. I write in the morning, and that's like when I'm focused,
45:15
coffee's going and everything, And I always shock, you know. I
45:20
go back sometimes and I'm like, yeah, I remember everything that I wrote
45:22
down, and I'll go back and see those notes and it's like, oh,
45:25
wow, that was a really great idea. But I just, you
45:28
know, for whatever reason, it wasn't there anymore. You know, the
45:30
my ability to recall it just had gone away. So can I want to
45:37
wrap it up because I know you you know, have things to do.
45:40
Can you just talking to people who are out there in our audience. It's
45:45
filmmakers and screenwriters and people who are working on projects. Can you you know,
45:50
what do you think is a good idea for them to start doing?
45:53
What can they do today to really start moving forward and not being frustrated and
45:59
getting their objects you know, on the road to being you know, completed.
46:05
Well, come on, I would be remiss and not saying get my
46:08
new version of getting things to the book and read it if you haven't yet.
46:14
I mean, truly, it is the manual for all of that,
46:16
and it will be pretty evergreen for lots of years to come in terms of,
46:22
you know, what we've uncovered and what we've discovered about it. So
46:24
that's that's essentially a you know, a great resource. That's that is a
46:30
way. That is a way to start. But quite frankly, it just
46:32
make sure you've got something you know, take up. You might want to
46:36
take a few hours at some point if you can carve that out of your
46:38
life and say, okay, I'm going to do this dumb thing called sit
46:43
down and write down every single thing that's on my mind, you know,
46:46
anything about anything, you know, little things, big things, personally,
46:50
think, professional things, creative things, anything, and truly keep going.
46:53
You know, most people can do that in about an hour or two at
46:58
least you can get most of it, and then you know, go through
47:02
each one of those and say Okay, what is exactly my next action on
47:07
this? What's my next action on that? What's my next action on that?
47:09
So just capturing and then applying the sort of next action cognitive rigor to
47:15
these things, and then you're gonna have to then you don't have to get
47:19
creative to decide what do I want to do? If I can't take that
47:21
action right now, where do I want to park it? How do I
47:22
create a list? How do I create you know, some sort of organizational
47:25
system if you don't have one already, you need to then go through that
47:29
process. So ideally, you you know, set up a whole day get
47:34
my book, because I actually walk people through this exercise, you know,
47:37
blow by blow part in part two of the book. That's one of the
47:43
reasons I wrote it that way, so that people didn't have to hire a
47:45
coach to walk them through this. But you're not born doing this and it
47:50
doesn't come, you know, automatically. You actually have to sit down and
47:52
put cognitive horsepower to this game. And it does take an investment on the
47:57
front end. It doesn't take a lot of time and energy to maintain it.
48:00
As a matter of fact, it takes much less than what most people
48:02
are trying to do once you actually get this set up, but it does
48:06
take an investment on the front of you. Well, David, I really
48:07
appreciate it. Thank you so much for coming on the show. It's it's
48:12
a pleasure to have you here with us today. Hey, it was fun,
48:15
Jason. This is great. I want to thank Jason so much for
48:20
doing such an amazing job with this episode. If you want to get links
48:22
to anything we spoke about in this episode, head over to the show notes
48:24
at Indy film muscle dot com. Forward slash six eighty six. If you
48:29
have it already, please head over to Filmmaking podcast dot com. Subscribe and
48:35
leave a good review for the show. It really helps us out a lot,
48:37
guys. Thank you again so much for listening. Guys, as always,
48:40
keep that hustle going, keep that dream alive, Stay safe out there,
48:44
and I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to the Indie Film
48:46
Hustle podcast at Indie film Hustle dot com. That's I N D I E
48:52
F I L M hustl dot com.